Tuesday, 27 March 2012

Google Building Third-Party Commenting Platform

Google is working on third-party commenting platform to rival Facebook’s, according to multiple reports. The system will be deeply integrated with several Google products so that comments left on third-party websites appear in Google search results and on Google+.

The commenting platform was allegedly discussed at an event Google hosted in Saudi Arabia earlier this week and later confirmed by inside sources to The Next Web. A spokesperson for Google declined to comment on the matter.

With so few details, it’s difficult to speculate what sort of impact a Google commenting system would have on the online publishing landscape. Should there be a SEO, and a resulting referral traffic advantage, to using Google’s commenting platform, it would likely attract a fair amount of interest among publishers — even those already using Facebook’s commenting system. Google’s tool could also pose a threat to independent commenting platforms such as Disqus, Livefyre and Intense Debate.

In addition to a commenting system, news emerged from the Saudi Arabia event that Google would roll out vanity URLs for Google+ users in the near future.